Apprenticeships and training options

Research suggests that 1.3 million people in work don't have the skills to do the job proficiently. These skills gaps are estimated to cost businesses £10 billion in lost revenue per year - that’s equivalent to £165,000 for a typical business with 50 employees!

It  also shows that effective training can help your business by:

• Increase productivity
• Improve customer service skills
• Generate greater staff satisfaction and motivation
• Retain its staff

The National Apprenticeship Service and The Skills Funding Agency are responsible for delivering the Government’s skills strategy in England and provides funding for training for employers including:

Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships can make your organisation more effective, competent, productive and competitive by addressing your skills gaps effectively. Apprenticeships are not just for young people they are designed to help employees of any age reach a high level of competency and performance.

There are different levels of Apprenticeships – Intermediate, Advanced and Higher

All Apprenticeships involve the following:

A Vocational Qualification:
This could be a National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs)or other suitable qualification. These range from basic work activities at Level 1 through to senior management at Level 5 and can lead to further qualifications.

Functional Skills:
Functional Skills are the essential skills that learners need to support them in their job. They include communication, numeracy and IT skills.

Technical Certificate:
Most Apprenticeships incorporate a technical certificate and an exam-based qualification, usually delivered by a learning provider either in the workplace or off-site. This provides the technical knowledge required for the job.

Delivery of training

Most of the training is on the job at your premises. The rest is provided by a training provider – who could be a local college or a private provider with a government funded contract. Throughout the Apprenticeship a learning representative will be available to support and guide you to:

• Help you decide which Apprenticeship is right for your company
• Explain the way Apprenticeships work and what funding is available
• Agree a training plan with you and your apprentice
• Manage the training and assessment.

Training Providers

Training Providers are organisations contracted by the Skills Funding Agency to provide work based training including Apprenticeships, NVQs and other vocational qualifications. A training provider might be a further education college or an independent training company. They may also offer other types of development training which could be useful to your business, for example, short courses, mandatory industry qualifications or degrees/diplomas.

The Nottinghamshire Training Network (NTN) exists to support Nottinghamshire’s work based learning provider network. It consists of 45 training organisations including 7 colleges, 9 national training providers and 20 local training providers. The Network has an annual throughput of 11,000 learners, supporting over 6000 local businesses.